Clay Bennett, 58, retired TVA lineman, propped his elbow on the wobbly plastic beer tent table and stared at the dregs of his bourbon. His hands still bore the faint, silvery scars of 32 years climbing utility poles in thunderstorms and ice, souvenirs he’d always been quietly proud of, even if his ex-wife had complained they scratched her silk sheets. He’d only come to the town’s annual harvest festival because his buddy Ron had begged him, then bailed an hour earlier with a sudden case of grandkid duty, leaving Clay stuck listening to a cover band mangle 90s country while teenaged couples stumbled past, faces sticky with cotton candy.
He’d been about to flag the bartender for a refill when he caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye, and his jaw tightened. Mara Carter, 49, the rec department’s senior program coordinator, and his ex-wife’s first cousin. He’d avoided her for 12 years, ever since the divorce papers were signed, even though she’d been the only person in his ex’s family who hadn’t screamed at him in the parking lot of the county courthouse. His ex had told everyone he’d cheated, a lie she’d cooked up to justify running off with a 28-year-old real estate agent, and Clay had been too proud to correct anyone, too bitter to stick around and fight for relationships that hadn’t seemed worth the effort. The flaw he’d never been able to shake: he’d rather walk away than beg anyone to believe him, even when he was telling the truth.
Mara slid onto the bench seat right next to him, not two spots over like most strangers would, and her faded denim jacket brushed the sleeve of his worn work flannel. She smelled like cinnamon and spiked apple cider, and there was a thin strand of wheat stuck to the crown of her wavy auburn hair, leftover from the hay bale maze set up at the edge of the festival grounds. “You’re a hard man to get ahold of,” she yelled over the band’s crunching guitar riff, leaning in so close her warm breath brushed the shell of his ear. He caught a flash of the tiny scar above her left eyebrow, the one she’d gotten at a family cookout 20 years prior, when a stray softball had clipped her in the face and Clay had been the one to drive her to the ER, holding a bag of frozen peas to her forehead the whole ride.
He grunted, tapping his empty bourbon glass against the table. “I don’t answer emails about senior mixers. Cringe stuff, for people who can’t make conversation without a name tag.”
She laughed, a low, throaty sound that made his shoulders loosen a little, and her shoulder bumped his hard enough that he had to steady his glass. When the bartender slid her hard cider and his refill across the counter at the same time, their fingers brushed as they reached for their drinks, and her skin was cold from the frosted aluminum can, sending a jolt up his arm he hadn’t felt in over a decade. He felt that familiar, sharp twist of conflicting feeling then: hot, bright desire tangled up with the old, ingrained guilt, the voice in the back of his head hissing that she was off limits, that talking to her, even looking at her too long, was a betrayal of the unspoken rules he’d set for himself after the divorce.
Mara didn’t pull her hand away right away, her gaze locking with his, and he noticed the little gold flecks in her hazel eyes, the way her lips were slightly parted, like she was waiting for him to say something. “I didn’t email you just about the mixer,” she said, quieter this time, leaning in so he didn’t have to strain to hear her over the music. “Your ex told me, three years ago. About the lie. I’ve been trying to find you ever since, to tell you I knew you didn’t do it. Always did.”
Clay went still, his grip on his bourbon glass so tight his knuckles whitened. He’d spent 12 years carrying that lie around, letting it push away every person who’d ever cared about him, and here she was, saying she’d known the whole time. He lifted his hand before he could think better of it, brushing that strand of wheat out of her hair, his calloused thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek. She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, just leaned into his touch a little, her eyes never leaving his. “I avoided you all these years because I was scared I’d do something stupid,” he said, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. “Something like kiss you, and burn the last bridge I had left to anyone who knew me before the divorce.”
She smiled then, slow, and reached up to wrap her fingers around his wrist, holding his hand against her cheek. “The only bridge that matters right now is the one we’re building,” she said.
They finished their drinks slow, swapping stories about the 12 years they’d missed, their knees pressed together under the table the whole time, neither of them making any move to pull away. By the time they left the tent, the festival was winding down, the string lights strung across the grounds glowing soft gold against the darkening sky, crickets chirping loud in the cornfield adjacent to the parking lot. He walked her to her beat-up pickup truck, and when she stopped to fumble for her keys in her jacket pocket, he stepped in close, tilted her chin up, and kissed her, slow and soft at first, then deeper when she wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck. She tasted like hard cider and cinnamon, and when she pulled back a minute later, she was grinning, her cheeks flushed.
“Skip the mixers with me?” she said, nodding toward the truck. “I’ve got a bottle of that same 10-year bourbon you like on my kitchen counter. No name tags, no small talk, no stupid family rules.”
Clay didn’t hesitate, just opened the passenger door for her, waited for her to climb in before he rounded the front of the truck and slid into the seat next to her. He rests his scarred hand on her knee as she pulls out of the gravel lot, the hum of the truck’s engine drowning out the distant band for good.
